Movies: The Dark Knight Rises

Movies: The Dark Knight Rises

Finally, after a long stretch of emptiness and voids of great movies, the blockbusters are starting to return again. Besides Spiderman, i guess it would be pretty safe to say that this is one of the other few very anticipated movies of this year and the fact that it is a third of a trilogy that is released 4 years from the previous adds to the anticipation... provided you remember what actually happened a whole 4 years ago or even 7 years if we are talking about the first batman installment in this trilogy.

Still blur about what is happening? all you need is this picture!

Batman, on top of many many cars

If up to now when you hear the name Batman and you think of this..

Baseball batman?

Man with bat??

Then its time to get out of the cave your living in... or you probably should not like this show..... if your batman is this guy however....

The real baseball batman

I would say you can still be saved....

So just a brief introduction to those who have forgotten, the first of the series, Batman Begins talks about the league of shadows and this fella called Ra's al ghul... Its focus is mainly on how Batman became batman and to be honest i myself find the villian in this movie pretty unimpressionable... at least its no one i remember and know well.. Read more here

Then we move into the next movie, which is probably one of the most memorable movies of all times.. "The Dark Knight" where we have the ever famous 

Why still so serious??

So this is the joker and one of the sad but memorable issues is that the actor Heath Ledger is touted to be one of the best and true to life Joker ever for a batman movie for being able to portray the psychotic joker so very very well.. read more on the movie here but this movie highlights and draws the mutual relationship that Batman actually has with his villians.. and this is something that will not exist in short hero movies unlike the Marvel and DC franchise. There is also a bit of how Harvey Dent came to be in this movie which is more popularly known as Two-Face...

Finally we come to the third movie.. which if you are lost... is this one that you could see in the theatres now... and it focuses on the villain Bane... I would say this is not really as popular a villain as the other two, but in the context of the movie, the mystery surrounding this Bane person helps keep this long long movie relevant and interesting till the end... Ok now into the movie review proper...

Storyline 4.5/5


The storyline is pretty strong in this movie, not only talking about the appearance of the main villain, but rather even emphasizes on two important other supporting characters of the Batman franchise. As a result, this 160++ minutes movie is able to stay interesting all the way to the end and this makes the show worth the time and the money.

Another thing of interest is, for this movie, it is not 90% of Batman all the way... in fact i would say that batman is on screen maybe for only about 75% of this movie and this movie starts to delve into many other aspects of the Batman universe and how it came to be with its focus on the other characters that are relevant.

Of course being a Bane based movie however, you will realise that it has slightly less thinking complexity and relationship between batman and the main villain,but you will see that the show has a lot more chances for action and for emphasis on a terrorist like takeover of the city, which is what Bane's character is all about. This works out better for the action loving crowd and those who like to see a entire city in a hostage situation.

This is bane for those unaware that actually included me

Furthermore, this movie is pretty realistic... what i mean is that unlike other super heroes movie and action flicks whereby the hero and all associated seems to always make good progress in whatever they want, this movie does not hurry and shows the characters in the movie failing in many aspects. You will get what i mean when you see the show but i shall not speak to much to allow the movie to remain fresh.

To top it off, the movie has quite a bit of background story telling and also has pretty good twists here and there. All in all, thanks to the great budget of time for this movie, the movie does not rush and takes its time to ease the people into the world of Batman. The only tiny qualm I would have is some of the proceedings are not entirely realistic or explained well enough (Read: Plot holes)... but on the whole these issues are still not massive enough to have that significant an impact.


Characters 4.5/5


As stated above, due to the large amount of budgeted time, the movie takes its time to talk about the background of quite a few characters and takes its time to build them up. This works to the advantage of the movie. There are still some characters that are somewhat neglected but they still do have a bit of background, just that to use even more time on them would probably have a negative impact on the action bits of the movie as it would make it a bit too draggy. Their approach is entirely fine to be honest and would just need a bit of refining to be polished well enough.

For those wondering if seeing the previous movie is a requirement to enjoy the show, I would say that as this movie introduces a new villain, you will be able to enjoy the whole story.. the only difficulty you would have is the reference to the league of shadows and Ra's al Ghul which was in the first movie... but besides that, you should have plenty to take in for the duration of this movie

Cinematography 4/5


Cinematography is pretty strong in this movie.. which plenty of overhead shots to show the exact Gotham situation and even has quite a bit of iconic shots. It even has nice epic battles although the 1 on 1 battles lack a bit of gadgetry from batman's arsenal that could have put more thrill into the fights.

That being said, for an action flick, I would still think that this aspect could be even more futher improved, possibly putting the audience into the driver seats of the vehicles, adding some perspective shots, and lengthening the action scenes a tad bit and making them more grander in nature.


Music 4/5


Its the kind of movie where by the music builds up a relevant atmosphere for the viewers and helps them get into the mood of the movie. So it definitely deserves a positive score for this aspect


Spectacle 4.5/5

To be clear though, this movie should not be seen as a merely action flick, because it is an action flick with a very strong storyline (i.e. many things to say). Action wise this movie would probably just a get 3.5 or a 4 at best. But like for the batman shows, this movie is about the story of batman, and thanks to the introduction of Bane, this movie allows for a stronger action component intertwined into the storyline components.

Overall


Storyline              : 4.5 (Strong storyline especially for such a long runtime)
Characters           : 4.5 (Many characters, all has quite fair bit of focus)
Cinematography  : 4 (Not to true pure action standard, but still very strong)
Music                   : 4 (Adds to the experience very well)
Spectacle              : 4.5 (A real good story driven action flick)


Overall : 4.3 (This would be a blockbuster for this period of time that i believe pretty much everyone could see and enjoy. Plus the long run time makes it more worth the money and the fact it remains fresh throughout the movie. The only person that would dislike this show would be those that just hate violence completely... but we know how rare that is in today's world... So I would strongly recommend everyone to see it, especially if you have free time during the weekdays whereby the cheap ticket prices more then justifies the amount of movie time that you would get. If you want to really enjoy the storyline in all its essence however, you probably should read a bit on the previous movie so that you understand some of the underlying issues in this batman universe)


Please comment should you have any! And seems like there are a few seemingly nice movies coming up also, so I hope to be able to review them and share them with you when the time comes :)

This is batman and bane saying see you soon :)

Movies: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

Movies: Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter

What happens when you put this

together with this

Hes just a picture for vampires if you dunno...

Well you end up with a movie like this

No comprehende?? Well it is no easy task to try to combine a historical figure who is entirely political with something that is really fantasy... (Please dun kill me just cause i said twilight and edward cullen are fantasy)
But is this show able to combine these two seemingly unrelated stories together? Read on to find out..


Storyline 3/5


The concept is pretty unique, in that the vampire show is not just entwined into our normal day lives similar to underworld or true blood where by the focus is on vampires in our present world. But rather, trying to put vampires as a part of history along with the associated hunters. Hence whether the show is able to succeed or not rests on how well the show is able to incorporate Abraham Lincoln into the world where vampires are included, and not only incorporate them convincingly, but it has to be placed in a way that can entertain the audience.

Sadly, besides the fact that the two angles are pretty far apart and hard to join together, the show also does not really make use of the strong points of both genre to be able to piece together a movie that history lovers will like, or an action flick that action lovers can enjoy.

All in all, i would say that you could conclude that this movie is just an ordinary action flick, with perhaps just slightly above average story line basis due to the usage of Abraham Lincoln, and also with average action scenes and shots. Yes there are historical touches like certain battle locations but aside from that the storyline is merely just giving a slightly more familiar background and tries to add vampires inside.


Character 3/5


The movie does try to put some emphasis on the background and character of Abraham, and this attempt is necessary since the movie wants to use Abraham as the attraction factor for this movie. But the rest of the characters are pretty forgettable and not distinct enough. Add to that the attempt for Abraham's love interest then you have a movie that has too many things to try to cover i.e. history, fantasy and love story aspect that it cannot really focus on anyone aspect enough.

As a result the characters are really bland and it is hard for the audience to feel for the character or be immersed into them.


Cinematography 3.5/5


Strictly speaking, if you were to look at this movie from an action perspective, you could conclude that at least this movie was filmed to be an action flick as the focus on cinematography is somewhat there. However, it does pale in comparison to other true action flicks out there which is probably because this movie is still trying to do too many things with too little time.

One example is that this movie will have less action scenes as compared to true action flicks because of the fact that they have to try to tell a bit of history because of Abraham Lincoln. The pacing of the movie is also somewhat too fast as they want to go from little Abraham all the way to President Abraham and squeeze all the vampire storyline and stuff inside. Its a good attempt, but you probably need to try to enjoy the movie, to actually enjoy the movie.


Music 3/5


Music is forgettable and ordinary, but it is there and does not hinder the flow of the movie. So I would have to give a pretty neutral grade to this movie


Spectacle 3/5


Yep, as you can see here... there is just too many focus points that the movie cannot excel in any... maybe at best, the movie can be said to do averagely well in historical fantasy?!!! Does that even make sense? hahah So that probably justifies the 3 score as it is probably one of the rare attempts at a unique genre. It probably could do better if given more time and skipping the love story part to just try to combine history with more personal action scenes from Abraham or even putting more emphasis on the major large scale battles to attract those epic war scenes lovers... as of now it cannot really attract and hold the attention of history/action/drama lovers...

Overall


Storyline               : 3 (It is a unique concept but when you see the whole show it feels pretty ordinary)
Character             : 3 (Slightly more focus on Abraham but the rest is really just too ordinary)
Cinematography   : 3.5 (They do have attempts on the action part of the show but it is not unique and special enough)
Music                   : 3 (Normal Music)
Spectacle             : 3 (Too many perspectives with none of them done particularly well)


Overall   : 3.1 (The best way to try to enjoy this movie is to first realise that you are seeing a action movie first... a history movie next... don't be expecting any historical revelation or anything too mindblowing. But even then, just remind yourself that since they wanna put the historical twist to it, they are also unable to emphasis as much on action. Yea... its not that easy to enjoy the movie if u are a big fan or lover of the history or action genre. You can only enjoy it if you see yourself as a mixed "unique storyline with some action lover")


So did you see this movie? What was your opinion? Please share it with me :D

Abraham Says night... p.s no werewolves here